Copying, Moving, and Deleting Notes and Comments

If you previously inserted comments or notes into your document and you want to copy, move, or delete one of them, you can use techniques you already know for editing regular text. The trick is to do your work in Draft mode. (That's why all the steps in this tip start with that instruction—make sure you are viewing the document in Draft view.) You can view your document in Draft mode by displaying the View tab of the ribbon and clicking the Draft tool at the left. You do the work in Draft mode because that allows you to see what are referred to as "comment marks." These denote where a comment or note is located. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. An example of a comment mark, shown here as [AW2].

To copy a note or comment, follow these steps:

1. Make sure you are viewing your document in Draft view.
2. Select the comment mark in your document.
3. Press Ctrl+C. The comment mark and the associated comment are copied to the Clipboard.
4. Position the insertion point at the location where you want to copy the comment.
5. Press Ctrl+V. The comment mark is inserted in your document, and the associated comment is added to your document.

You'll note that when you past the comment mark at the new location (step 5), there is no text selected to which the comment or note applies. In other words, the comment or note is inserted, but no text is highlighted and associated with the comment or note.

If you want to move a comment or note to another location in your document (or even to another document), you can use techniques you already know for moving regular text. To move a comment or note, follow these steps:

1. Make sure you are viewing your document in Draft view.
2. Select the comment mark for the comment you want to move.
3. Press Ctrl+X. The comment mark and the associated comment are removed from your document and copied to the Clipboard.
4. Position the insertion point at the location where you want the comment moved.
5. Press Ctrl+V. The comment mark is inserted in your document, and the associated comment is again added to the document.

To remove a comment or note from your document, follow these steps:

1. Make sure you are viewing your document in Draft view.
2. Select the comment mark in your document.
3. Press either Del or Ctrl+X.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (10021) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Copying, Moving, and Deleting Comments.